Magical stories you can read all by yourself!A fairy queen takes a handsome shepard over snow-covered mountains to an enchanted garden; a princess proves her love to the father who impetuously banished her; a clever boy outwits a hungry dragon — there’s magic and mystery in these eight tales from long-ago Greece.
Europe
Materials from Europe
The Last Apprentice: Clash of the Demons
“You can’t make alliances with witches and suchlike and hope to avoid being drawn toward the dark.” As the Spook’s apprentice, Thomas Ward’s first duty is to protect the County from ghosts, boggarts, and other dangerous creatures. But now his mother has come back from her homeland to seek his help. One of the most dangerous of the old witches, Ordeen, is about to return to earth, bringing with her suffering and devastation. Tom’s mother has mustered a powerful army—including Tom’s friend Alice, the Pendle witches, and the assassin Grimalkin—to confront Ordeen. If Tom joins them, the Spook will refuse to take Tom back as his apprentice. What sacrifices will be made in the battle against the dark?
Crocodile Tears: An Alex Rider Novel
It’s just another day in the life of Alex Rider. A con artist has realized there is big money in charity– the bigger the disaster, the greater the money flow! So that is what he will produce: the biggest disaster known to man, all thanks to genetically modified wheat that can release a virus so potent it can knock out an entire country in one windy day. But Alex Rider will face whatever it takes–gunfire, explosions, hand-to-hand combat with mercenaries– to bring down his most dangerous adversary yet. Series
Cookie
Cookie is plain and shy, not the confident, popular girl her father wanted when he named her Beauty Cookson. Her mother helps her cook up a clever scheme to change her image–but, as usual, Dad doesn’t approve, and this time his anger reaches frightening new heights. Will Cookie find the strength to stand up for herself? Honest and emotionally resonant, COOKIE faces tough issues with the unflinching directness and unflagging tenderness that make Jacqueline Wilson one of today’s most admired-and popular-authors for young people.
Framed
A few things to know about Dylan. He is the only boy in his entire town. His best friends are two pet chickens. Criminal instincts run in his family. And one more small thing about nine-year-old Dylan—the crime of the century has just fallen into his lap.
The Time Travelers’ Handbook: A Wild, Wacky, And Wooly Adventure Through History!
Grab your portable time machine and set off on a guided tour through the most interesting parts of ancient history. Find out ancient secrets: How are mummies made? Where does Chinese silk come from? Learn forgotten rituals: Leap over a Minoan bull, vote in an ancient Greek election, and become a jaguar warrior. And finally, bring forgotten skills to life: Pass notes in your own form of Sumerian writing, dine on ancient Roman delicacies, and play Mayan football in your backyard.
Mirrorscape
In a world where all pleasures are severely restricted, Melkin Womper is apprenticed to a master painter where he discovers the Mirrorscape, a world inside paintings, and becomes entangled in a war between the restrictive Fifth Mystery and the rebels fighting to stop them.
Celandine (David Fickling Books)
Set seventy years before The Various, the second book in the trilogy follows the adventures of young Celandine at the onset of the First World War. Having run away from her detested boarding school, Celandine is too afraid to go home in case she is sent back. As she seeks shelter in the Wild Wood near her home, little does she think she will encounter a world where loyalty and independence is fiercely guarded, and where danger lurks in the most unlikely of places. Celandine’s troubled character finds both refuge and purpose among the secret tribes of little people that she alone believes in.The novels of the Various trilogy are full of mystery, beauty and adventure; this second novel is both page-turning and life-affirming.
Spellbinder
Belladonna Johnson can see ghosts. It’s a trait she’s inherited from her mother’s side of the family, like blue eyes or straight hair. And it’s a trait she could do without, because what twelve-year-old wants to be caught talking to someone invisible? It is convenient, though, after Belladonna’s parents are killed in a car accident. They can live with her the same as always, watching the same old TV shows in their same old house. Nothing has changed . . . until everything changes. One night, with no warning, they vanish into thin air—along with every other ghost in the world. It’s what some people think ghosts are supposed to do, but Belladonna knows it’s all wrong. They may not be living, but they’re not supposed to be gone. With the help of her classmate Steve, a master of sneaking and spying, Belladonna is left to uncover what’s become of the spirits and to navigate a whole world her parents have kept well-hidden. If she can’t find her way, she’ll lose them again—this time for good.
The Midnight Charter
In a society based on trade, where everything can be bought and sold, the future rests on the secrets of a single document-and the lives of two children whose destiny it is to discover its secrets. In this spellbinding novel, newcomer David Whitley has imagined a nation at a crossroads: misshaped by materialism and facing a choice about its future.